1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act
considered a significant achievement and gave new political coherence to the policies and practices of nature conservation in Britain. By the end of the decade, some 8% of the land area of Britain was covered by an SSSI designation.
Carolyn M. Harrison and Jacquelin Burgess, ‘Social constructions of nature: a case study of conflicts over the development of Rainham Marshes’, Trans. Inst. Brit. Geog, 19: 3 (1994), 293.